


something along the way

by dankaroo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bodyswap, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gen, Minor Kara Danvers/Mon-El, Slow Burn Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, minor karolsen, they break up i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankaroo/pseuds/dankaroo
Summary: Someone’s trying to destroy Supergirl and the Super name, too. In a freak accident, all of the Superfriends have switched bodies with each other — except Kara. Now they have to get the bad guy (and switch back) before he strikes again.





	something along the way

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying my hand at writing a story with a plot. Inspired by the body swap trope after reading ‘Your Name’ by lostariels :-)
> 
> Kara and Mon-El are still dating in this story to start, but it's not going to last long. The gang's all here but the Lena/Kara dynamic is pretty prevalent and central to the plot.

Kara Danvers loves a good sunrise.  
  
She’s well aware that sunsets are supposed to be more romantic or more beautiful or whatever, but there’s something about how the light creeps up the treetops and over buildings, up the toes of her boots and over her face, warming every inch of her— she can’t get enough of it. It has little to do with getting her powers from the sun, although she does appreciate the sentiment that’s she’s literally soaking in the strength of it as it rises. If she’s honest, it’s more about the serenity and quietness of dawn. She loves the silence right before the birds start chirping, the street lamps extinguish themselves, car horns blare, the airwaves clog with radio signals and pop hits singles of the week.  
  
It’s the colors that she likes best of all, though. The soft pinks and oranges and yellows and blues remind her of the home she lost. Even though they have nothing on a Kryptonian moonrise, they’re as close as she can get these days. As close as she’ll ever get, probably.  
  
Kara doesn’t make a habit of getting up early enough to watch the sun wake up the whole city, but she’ll keep herself awake an extra half an hour to see it on the days she spends the early morning hours patrolling National City. It’s special enough to her to warrant the extra morning grumpiness that she — um, everyone else — will face later for that fleeting moment of peace.  
  
Those are the days she can fool herself into thinking that everything will be okay somehow, and that her life is pretty good.  
  
Not that she doesn’t like her life!  
  
She has wonderful friends and a loving family. And being a reporter makes — made — her feel like she is — ugh, _was_ — contributing to something important. Like she’s making a difference, superhero or not. Sure, _Supergirl_ could knock bad guys three city blocks away with a single punch and hold up a building until everyone can escape, but _Kara_ wants to help too and now that she doesn’t have a way, she feels lost. Cliché? Yes. True? Double yes.  
  
She feels lost but not quite as lost as when she first came to Earth, of course. Nothing will ever compare with the loneliness of being the sole survivor of an entire culture.  
  
Maybe she’s having a quarter-life crisis or something. She hasn’t had one yet, not counting the whole coming out as Supergirl stuff. So what if she was born 50 years ago? She’s technically only 26, she’s as much a millennial as Winn and James and Alex. They all had one. Alex had, like, three. So maybe that’s what it is. She’ll have to ask Alex for her opinion later. The whole funemployment thing stopped being fun when it meant she had extra time to think about all this crap, genius-alien-brain-that-should-know-better-than-to-be-all-existential be damned.  
  
She heaves a sigh and is ready to turn in for the night. If she gets home now, she’ll have… forty-five minutes of sleep before she’s due at the DEO. Great.  
  
She decides that it’s a sunrise morning.  
  
She’s sitting on the roof of her apartment watching the rays peek over the CatCo building and then L-Corp, and then—  
  
The unmistakable sound of metal crushing against cement has her pushing off into the sky, full speed towards what can only be a car accident. She arrives to see the front end of a silver Lexus flattened against the side of an overpass. Without a moment’s hesitation, the hero rips off the roof of the car to free any people inside but instead finds a small gray device with a flashing red light. The device begins to blink more rapidly, and, _oh shit_ , it’s a bomb. She scans the area for potential casualties and finds none, grabs the device, and launches herself and it into the sky.  
  
When she’s above any possible flight path or where any kind of living thing might be dwelling, Kara throws it further still as the light turns solid and the device explodes.  
  
Everything is quiet. The city is safe. Again.  
  
For now.

* * *

  
“Supergirl! Check out this thing I did! It literally _downloads_ —” Winn is flanking Kara with some sort of metal USB drive as she beelines to the center of the room, but she dismisses him with a quick _Sorry, later!_ and a grimace. He heads back to his desk, grumbling and fiddling with the memory stick for a while before busying himself with security updates to the network.  
  
“Something weird happened this morning,” Kara walks up to J’onn, arms folded across her chest.  
  
“I heard,” J’onn says, “But I thought NCPD had it handled. Nothing extra-normal, alien or otherwise.”  
  
Kara inhales deeply and explains, “It just didn’t feel right. It was early morning. No one was out, no one was around. Why plant a bomb if there weren’t going to be any casualties? I’m glad no one was hurt, but…”  
  
“It doesn’t make sense.” J’onn says. “You think it was a decoy.”  
  
“Yeah, but, for what?”  
  
“Whoever is behind this is trying to lure you out.”  
  
“You read my mind,” Kara jokes, and the faint pull at the corner of J’onn’s mouth is the only indication that he appreciates her jab at the limitations of his Martian abilities.  
  
“Okay, so you’re being targeted. That makes this DEO territory.” Kara sighs as J’onn takes his leave to make some phone calls to the National City Police Department.  
  
“I’m gonna go get some food before something else blows up,” she announces to no one in particular, arms crossed.  
  
“Mind if I tag along?” Oh, Winn. She’d been sidetracked and completely forgot. It’s been a while since the two of them hung out one-on-one, since she and Mon-El started doing… whatever it is that they’re doing. On and off relationships are so not her thing, and she’s so stressed, and gosh, she misses her friend. She breaks into a grin.  
  
“Let me change real quick.”  
  
He drives them into the city, and Kara’s grateful for the sense of normalcy of not flying. Winn parks in front of Noonan’s. “Thought we’d go back to our roots,” he beams. “Also I’ve been dying for those almond bearclaws.”  
  
Kara laughs and agrees, “Yeah, I could eat probably ten and not get sick of them.”  
  
They chat idly in a booth, sipping their coffees and picking at the dozen pastries they bought to share. They reminisce for a while about working at CatCo together and how they met, and Kara laughs at the appropriate times but her smile doesn’t fully reach her eyes. Winn leans over the table and rests a hand on Kara’s arm. She looks him in the eye, a little surprised by the physical contact, and he asks, “Hey, Kara, are you doing okay?”  
  
She adjusts her glasses and looks at her lap. “Yeah, of course, why wouldn’t I be?”  
  
Winn looks at her with a sheepish smile, and treads carefully. “It’s just, you seem to be, wound up? I guess. I don’t know if that’s the right word. James and I were talking—”  
  
“Look, I know you guys do the whole vigilante thing together but talking behind my _back_ —” the whispering makes it sound harsher than she means it, and she feels a little bad, but then Winn cuts her off.  
  
“Kara, come on. No, listen. We’re just worried about you. Ever since you stopped, y’know, having a routine that includes stuff other than saving people all the time, you’ve been a little… touchy. We were just thinking that maybe it’s time for a friend night?” He punctuates the proposition with what Kara affectionately coined his _Winn_ ing smile back when they first started to become friends. (She’d laughed at her own joke for about five minutes, and Winn knew he’d found a true friend in that moment.)  
  
Kara inhales deeply and rubs her temples. “I’m sorry, I’m— you’re right. I am a little moody right now.” She fiddles with her hands and looks up at her friend. “I’d love that. Friend night.” They share a smile, and she continues with a wince, “Is it really that noticeable?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. You’re like, eat-a-Snickers levels of grumpy. I’m the only one with enough guts to say anything, though.”  
  
Kara clutches her chest in fake agony and bows her head in mock shame. “You’ve all been conspiring against me!”  
  
Winn’s glad to have gotten a positive reaction out of her. “Only because we love you! How’s tomorrow work?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s great.” But she sits on that for a second, and then remembers, “Oh, wait, I have plans with Lena, actually. Maybe Saturday?”  
  
He thinks for a minute, and then surprises himself. “Or,” he suggests, “you could just invite her like a normal person? Because she’s your friend? And this is your friend night?”  
  
Kara bites her lip in hesitation. “But she doesn’t know…”  
  
Winn gives her a look, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline and half a smirk, that makes her want to draw her knees to her chest and curl up into a little ball. She knows she’s being silly, but the prospect of Lena knowing that she’s Supergirl has her stomach in knots. It’s her big life secret, that she’s an alien and a superhero. She and Lena are close, but are they _there_ yet? Once they acknowledge it out loud, it’s kind of a best-friend-for-life deal. It’s a big step. A milestone, even.  
  
“Kara. The woman built a black body field generator, hatched a foolproof plan against her own mother to render a virus inert and save all the aliens in the city, runs a multibillion dollar corporation at the ripe old age of twentysomething, and has spent more than ten minutes with you. She knows.”  
  
“But!” Kara’s nerves have her reaching for any kind of proof that maybe Lena _doesn’t_ know, but she comes up with exactly nothing.  
  
“She knows. Don’t insult her intelligence, I’ll tell her you think she’s not as smart as you,” he teases. He wouldn’t really, for reasons including he’s kind of afraid of Lena, but it’s fun to see Kara get flustered.  
  
She opens her mouth and gestures wildly with an index finger to defend herself, but only stammers out some vowels before she gives in, shoulders dropping in defeat. “I’ll text her.” She taps out a message and clarifies, “For the record, I don’t think I’m smarter than her. Or anyone else.” It’s not a fair comparison anyway, Kara thinks. Math and science classes were way more advanced on Krypton, and if Lena or Winn had the chance to learn there they probably would’ve done as well as she had. For sure.  
  
“Mhm.” Winn plays at being unconvinced, just to see Kara flounder a little. He misses this.  
  
She looks up to refute him and realizes he’s kidding. She sits back and crosses her arms, and then lets out a few short laughs before shaking her head and looking down at her phone. “If she doesn’t want to come, we’ll do Saturday, okay?”  
  
“She’ll want to come.”  
  
“But, I—”  
  
“You can’t keep her to yourself for _ever_ ,” Winn says.  
  
She feels a little guilty about that, now that he mentions it. She wants Lena to be a bigger part of her life, she’s just worried because her friends didn’t exactly trust the Luthor at first, and that makes things weird. And Lena’s great, and Kara knows everyone will like her once they get a chance to really meet her, but it’s always hard to be the new person in a group and throwing her into the fire like this may not be the best way. For Lena’s sake, of course. Not because Kara’s afraid of taking that next step. Which she’s not. So Winn’s right. It’ll be totally fine. Just a normal old friend night. A night of friends. Of which Lena is one.  
  
“She’s a busy person, she probably won’t answer until tonight,” Kara says a little haughtily, “so I’ll let you know.”  
  
Her phone dings with a notification.  
  
Winn chuckles to himself, and Kara blushes a little. “She wants to come.”  
  
He whoops in excitement, mostly at being right, and they finish their lunch before heading back to the DEO.

* * *

It’s not awkward.  
  
Okay, it was at the beginning, but now they’re collectively three bottles of wine into friend night and things are great. Mon-El has been pawing at her hand for the better part of an hour, which has been kind of annoying, but other than that he’s behaving. Sort of. He’s also been pouting because she’s been paying more attention to Lena than him, but it’s only because Lena’s the newest and Kara’s her only connection to the whole group. It’s more important for her to be a good friend to Lena than a good girlfriend to Mon-El right now. She knows she’ll hear an earful about it later, but whatever. She’s having fun. And so is Lena. And everyone else, too.  
  
They’re playing a round of charades, with Kara acting and Mon-El and Lena trying to guess. James, Winn, Alex, and Maggie are sitting on the couch watching the hilarity about to ensue.

Kara holds up two fingers, prompting her team.  
  
“Two words,” Lena starts, and Kara makes a circular hand motion with both hands. “About…” Kara points to herself, “Supergirl.” Lena’s eyes are twinkling, and, yeah, it’s confirmed. Kara bites her lip and shakes her head no.  
  
“Kara, hero, hot girl, glasses?” Mon-El tries. Kara’s eyes widen and she shakes her head vigorously. She tries again and points between herself and Mon-El a few times. “Couple, dating, in love?”  
  
She rolls her eyes, and ugh, _no_ , he’s not getting it, but when Lena blurts “Aliens!” Kara jumps up and down and claps, smiling.  
  
The other team is in stitches, and Kara’s pretty sure Alex is in tears.  
  
She holds up one finger. “First word,” Mon-El says. She starts to flap both of her arms up and down.  
  
A high pitched tone rips into her eardrums and she gasps in pain and doubles over, covering her ears. “Loud, sick, headache?”  
  
When she doesn’t respond:  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
“Kara what’s the matter?”  
  
She’s not sure who’s asking what, but the tone stops and she drops her hands. “Sorry guys, there was this… never mind. It’s gone now.” She takes a breath and nods to show she’s okay, and starts flapping her arms again.  
  
Alex watches her carefully, and both Lena and Mon-El guess _flying,_ and she’s ready to try for the second word when the tone starts up again.  
  
This time it’s reverberating in her skull and it’s persistent. She winces as she hones in on the source of the noise, and follows it to the windowsill. She picks up a small rectangular black box, and it juts out a lancet and pricks her hand. Well, tries to. The beeping stops when the lancet breaks off.  
  
Alex is off the couch in a second and steps towards her sister, holding up a cautious hand. “Kara, what’s —“  
  
Something, no, someone smashes through the window. The intruder raises a massive blue fist and swings it at Kara, who ducks just in time and manages to get a hit in at his stomach on the way down.  
  
“Everyone, get back!” They’re matching blow for blow, so Kara throws her glasses aside and squints her eyes to zap his shoulder with her heat vision. The creature roars and grabs for her, misses, and stumbles. Kara takes advantage of his weak positioning to get a hand around his throat, and another around one wrist. She shoves him backward and has him pinned to the wall, next to the window he busted through.  
  
“You ruined friend night!” She’s mad, rightfully so, and headbutts the beast in his nose. One of his noses. Whatever. His face. He bares his teeth, but then his mouth twists into what can only be interpreted as a vicious smile. His confidence shakes her and she stares into his pitch black, beady eyes as she tightens her grip on him. With his free hand, he holds up a device identical to the one that Kara had found in her apartment and presses the small button on the underside.  
  
There’s a moment where Kara is afraid something terrible is going to happen, but then the brute’s face begins to fall, and oh, something is not right. All of the sound seems to get sucked out of the room, and then the device in his hand explodes.  
  
Kara is thrown across the room and lands in front of Lena and Winn, who are crouched behind the couch. The monster catches a glimpse of Lena as she’s pulling Kara behind it, and stumbles as he starts towards her. Kara looks up at him, confused by his hesitation at the sight of a human when he very clearly came prepared to attack a Kryptonian, and tries to stand up. She won’t let him hurt her friends. He takes one more look around the room, snarls, and then jumps out of the destroyed apartment wall to the street below. By the time the group has rushed over, he’s long gone.  
  
“Are you guys okay?” Kara’s facing her friends now, and they all look uneasy. Something’s _definitely_ not right.  
  
There’s a few mumbled _yeah_ s, and no one has a scratch on them. Thank Rao for small favors.

Kara turns around to inspect the damage to her house. The window is gone and the blast has taken a good chunk of the surrounding wall with it. A few pieces of drywall crumble and fall to the ground.  
  
She sighs.  
  
James walks up beside her and places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay Kara, you can stay with me until this gets fixed.”  
  
Kara’s flattered, and her and James are good friends, but yeah, no. There’s hardly any awkwardness left from their break-up, and they made up after their fight about James being Guardian, but it would still be… weird, is what Kara settles on. She lets him down easy.  
  
“Thanks, James, but I think I’ll just crash with Alex.” She turns and offers him a reassuring smile, and then looks at Alex. Alex knits her brows and turns to look behind her, where no one is standing.  
  
“I’m not James,” James says, and then holds his hands up to look at them. “Wait, I’m James? No, I’m not!”  
  
“Did you hit your head? Should we go to the hospital?” Kara’s concerned, and reaches up to the man’s face to check for any missed injuries.  
  
“I’m James,” says Maggie, raising her hand. There’s a pause as everyone looks around the group.  
  
“I’m Maggie,” says Alex.  
  
“Wait, wait, wait. Everyone hold on.” Kara’s holding her hands out in front of her, trying to get her bearings. “I think I hit _my_ head.”  
  
“Maybe, but, uh, I think something else has gone Super wrong,” and it’s Lena’s voice, but only Winn would talk like that. And make a joke at a time like this.  
  
“So if Maggie is Alex, and James is Maggie, who are you?” Kara turns back to ‘James.’  
  
He huffs, “I’m your _boy_ friend, Kara.” Oh, great. So now her boyfriend is her ex, on top of this all. Perfect.

Kara looks between the two remaining people. Winn pipes up, "Alex."  
  
“Right. So if Lena’s Winn, and Winn's Alex, then you’re—” She faces the body of her boyfriend “—Lena.” Lena looks like she’s about to pass out.  
  
“I need to sit down,” Lena says.  
  
Kara closes her eyes and rubs them with the heels of her hands. “Okay, this is happening.” She takes a deep breath and picks up the device that has fallen to the ground.

“We need to call J’onn.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, thanks for reading! Catch me on tumblr @dankaroo-writes


End file.
